A role model for saying no and doing tough things: Hipparchia of Maroneia

She stood for going against social conventions, standing up for ourselves, and living by uncompromising Cynic principles, despite the discomfort. Thank you, Hipparchia!

This ancient fresco shows Hipparchia (right) along with Crates, her husband.

In March, I spoke at the Lighting the Way: Philosophical Role Models online event about three of my ancient role models. I’d like to share why I picked each of them in this series of 3 posts on Hipparchia, Seneca, and Hypatia.

Do you have a tough time saying no? Find it hard to go against expectations, and end up agreeing to do things you don’t really want, just to avoid conflict?

If you do, I have a role model for you to consider adopting from ancient Greece, someone who can power your “no”: Hipparchia of Maroneia.

But first, a bit more backstory about why we need to turn to Hipparchia. As little kids, most of us said no a lot. Toddlers are famous for it! But as adults, it’s not that easy. We’re constantly coping with the expectations of others, including those of our kids (if we’re caregivers) and family, employers, friends, neighbors, etc.—and putting that into balance with what we want for ourselves. Deciding when and how you should stand up for yourself in the face of a barrier, a difficult or unfair situation, or a social convention you don’t agree with is a complex choice with a lot of real-world consequences.

In the face of these expectations, many of us have developed a strong “people pleaser” tendency that has helped us to get along in difficult situations, one that relies on tailoring our behavior to suit other people. It’s tempting to do what is least likely to provoke another’s anger, frustration, annoyance, or rejection… and therefore, to make them happy at the expense of what you want. But if you go too far down that path, you might just end up in Saturday Night Live’s People Pleasure Support Group.

Personally, I’d prefer to make others feel happy, comfortable, and appreciated, rather than having to say no. But what about what I want, and what would make me happy? As a coach said to me, “If you spend all your time and energy making other people comfortable, you’ll end up feeling uncomfortable yourself.”

So, to give me, and you, strength in this department, let me introduce the remarkable Hipparchia. She was the rare ancient Greek woman who is known for saying no, who was unafraid to stand up for herself, and who went after what she wanted. Rather than living by the standards of her society, she decided on a nonconformist path that got her a seat at the philosophical table.

Born in Maroneia, a town in Thrace, Greece, in around 350 BCE to a well-heeled family, Hipparchia likely first came into contact with philosophy through her brother, Metrocles. He was a rising star who gave a public speech rehearsal which he punctuated by passing gas. His flatulence shamed him so terribly that he decided to lock himself into a room without food. (I’m getting the impression that this was a family of extremes!) The Cynic philosopher Crates heard about this, and made a fateful decision: He’d eat a bunch of lupines, known to produce gas, and go visit Metrocles, showing him that it was OK to pass gas in front of others. The plan worked: Metrocles gave up his self-destructive ways and joined Crates as a student.

If you follow Stoicism, you may recall the name Crates from his famous role in the formation of Stoic philosophy. He was the first philosophy teacher of Zeno of Citium, Stoicism’s founder. Ancient writers said that Zeno, after a shipwreck landed him in Athens, went to a bookseller and started reading about the celebrated (and deceased) philosopher Socrates. He asked the bookseller if there was anyone like that he could learn from in the city, and the bookseller pointed to Crates, who was walking by—and the rest is history. As you read about Hipparchia, note that she may have also had an influence on Zeno; at least, her philosophical school of Cynicism certainly did.

I imagine that when Hipparchia met her brother’s teacher Crates, she found a very, very different man when compared with the well-off young gentlemen her parents were trying to marry her off to. She was likely in her late teens, and he was significantly older. Crates lived a penniless existence on the streets, without a traditional shelter or material goods, doing everything in public to fly in the face of social conventions and live according to nature and reason, without shame. Hipparchia quickly took interest in his ideas. It’s possible that she learned from what he was teaching her brother, and glimpsed the beauty in Cynic thinking.

Hipparchia decided she wanted to marry Crates, and (again very dramatically) she told her parents no, she would not marry a man they select. She would form a union with Crates, or else she would choose to die. Rather than a conventional Greek marriage, focused on domestic arts like weaving, and raising children, she wanted to practice philosophy at Crates’ side.

Funny enough, even Crates tried to talk her out of the marriage, shedding his cloak to reveal his less-than-attractive body (the ancient writer Diogenes Laertius, the source of most of the stories about Hipparchia, shared that Crates was in fact “ugly to look at, and when exercising used to be laughed at”). Crates apparently told Hipparchia as she looked at his naked form: “This is the bridegroom, and this is his property. Think it over! You’ll be no companion for me unless you adopt my way of life.”

And that’s exactly what she did: adopt his way of life, and become his companion. Abandoning the wealthy upbringing she was born into, Hipparchia chose a man and above all a philosophy—Cynicism—that came with an uncompromising lifestyle. When she picked Cynicism, she knew it would mean living on the streets, clothed in a rough cloak, with nothing but a knapsack for possessions. It was physically uncomfortable by most people’s standards, but, I imagine, was extremely rewarding to her both psychologically and philosophically.

And in doing so, she gained not just a partner, but an ally in the practice of philosophy. Together, they lived publicly as a couple eschewing all luxuries and material goods. They likely had two children, too. (Here I am reminded of an essay featured recently in The Cut, part of New York magazine, that’s gained a lot of publicity: “The Case for Marrying an Older Man.”  Hipparchia’s marriage was built on philosophy and a meeting-of-the-minds ideal, aligning with a Cynic minimalist lifestyle, nonconformity, and an acceptance of discomfort. In The Cut piece, the writer’s case seems to be built on the opposite: comfort, wealth, and freedom from work, resulting in a marriage in which the couple are only “sometimes” friends.)

For Cynics, the goal was to pursue virtue, and to tune out all the messages and voices our society puts in our heads. The sense of reason found within, a nature-given spark, gives us our sense of what’s good. There’s a reason that the O.G. Cynic philosopher Diogenes was labelled by Plato “a Socrates gone mad”—the Cynic took Socrates’ questioning of Greek conventions and his reliance on reason much, much farther. And Crates and Hipparchia did so, too.

One concrete Cynic principle was, essentially, to speak truth to power. Hipparchia famously attended a symposium (drinking party) with Crates where she argued with another philosopher, Theodorus, who verbally and then physically attacked her. When he questioned why she was there and not at home weaving, Hipparchia said: “Do you suppose that I’d be wrong if, instead of wasting further time upon the loom, I spent it in education?” She said no to his belittling remarks, and emphasized her right to learn.

She then argued, logically, that anything Theodorus did to himself would not be wrong if another person did it—and that would include hitting him. Theodorus became enraged and went to attack her by pulling up her cloak, but Hipparchia wasn’t bothered. Nudity didn’t shock or shame her. She kept calm and carried on.

Hipparchia died in around 280 BCE, but her memory lives on. Here are a few lessons from this fearless role model—her example can help us:

• Find strength to say no.

• Honor the value of education and refining our ideas, and teaching them to others through our actions.

• Stay true to those ideas, and finding inspiration in living for virtue, even if it’s uncomfortable.

• Recognize how to stand our ground in a fight, and form important allies.

• And once we’ve taken our seat at the philosophical table (even if an ally like Crates was the person who got you there), make an unapologetic defense of our right to be there!

And to add to this, here is another practice to consider: We can challenge ourselves to do tough things, despite discomfort, barriers, and potential criticism.

For lots of folks, this is a way of life. Many do this every day when caring for or supporting our children; many of us do this in our careers. Every time we have to pivot away from a job, a school, a career path, a home, and start something fresh, we show we can do tough things. Every time we take care of a sick child, and every time we work with big emotions in our families, we show it yet again.

Many of us encourage our kids to do hard things, too, knowing they may not succeed, but will learn from the process. That’s the point of all the discussion of growth mindset in schools these days. Learning something new is difficult, but worth trying, even if we cannot get it right at first (or ever).

My daughters have done some challenging things, or at least I think so. To name a few examples, they have played on competitive sports teams (something I myself never ventured!); they have done polar bear swims in icy water, and high ropes courses at the tops of redwoods; they have applied themselves in technical classes where they were sometimes the only girls; they (like many kids in the US) went to school online for over a year during the pandemic, often with little guidance; they have taken on roles in student government and volunteer orgs to try to improve their school communities; and my older daughter went to live overseas on her own for four months, at age 17.

Recently, my daughter confronted the powers-that-be. She broke an investigative news story for her university’s student newspaper that led to a big win for her classmates: The school went from quietly eliminating 2 major scholarship programs (perhaps hoping the decision would go largely unnoticed), to reversing course and re-instating them after her story was published and an outcry ensued. I think Hipparchia would have approved publicly speaking up, sharing the truth, and defending the right to education!

Though we’ve been very fortunate in many ways, we’ve lived through our share of stressful times and disappointments that come from putting yourself out there. If you ask my teens, I think they’d say that it has been worth the challenge. From what I can see, every time we go outside our comfort zone, we grow a little, and maybe we even work to overcome a barrier we didn’t realize needed challenging.

Let’s keep Hipparchia’s example close—when we need to say no and when we want to try something difficult. Let her fearless embrace of a nonconformist and less-than-comfortable life be our guide.